This simple policy then goes on to silence most individual publisher(/self-media) and consolidated the industry into the hands of the few, with no opportunity left for smaller entrepreneurs. This is arguably much worse than allowing children to watch porn online, because this will for sure effect people's whole life in a negative way.

Also, if EU really wants "VPN services to be restricted to adults only", they should just fine the children who uses it, or their parent for allowing it to happen. The same way you fine drivers for traffic violation, but not the road.

And if EU still think that's not enough, maybe they should just cut the cable, like what North Korea did.

The EP paper appears to be highlighting the existence of a debate regarding VPN.

Relevant quote:

"Some argue that this is a loophole in the legislation that needs closing and call for age verification to be required for VPNs as well. In response, some VPN providers argue that they do not share information with third parties and state that their services are not intended for use by children in the first place. The Children's Commissioner for England has called for VPNs to be restricted to adult use only.

While privacy advocates argue that imposing age-verification requirements on VPNs would pose significant risk to anonymity and date protection, child-safety campaigners claim that their widespread use by minors requires a regulatory response. Pornhub and other large pornography platforms have reportedly lost web traffic following the enforcement of age-verification rules in the UK, while VPN apps have reached the top of download rankings."

Of course I'm not saying the EU won't regulate VPNs, but nowhere in this paper is "the EU" stating that VPNs need closing.

Not one policy maker has ever seemingly cared about this. But VPNs! That'll fix the budget and demographic crises of European nations, for sure.

I'm curious to see how the EU will maneuver it's new long-term financial plan when none of the members can even pay the membership fee soon.

Mandatory age verification online is a blight imho. It should be outlawed.

Why is age verification connected with identity verification?

I understand why the former is not possible with the latter, but my question is -

Whichever entity is responsible for the verification can just pass on the age verification confirmation without passing through any of the other details, right?

Am I mistaken here? Because if this was possible, I could still go ahead with using the VPN.

Please stop thinking about the kids on the internet. But here's a brief list of things you must work on with higher urgency:

- taxing more large corporations,

- taxing more ultra-rich people,

- funding EU-made (open source) tech and infrastructure,

- let parents spend more time with their kids so they can actually protect their offspring and keep them safe from predators, more than any stupid law you think you can devise can do,

- more trains.

There should be a standardized government ID service/API that allows a person to let it disclose their age (or other user selected information) to a requesting site/service. That's all that is needed if the government ID service has appropriate 2FA and security.

Both the request and the response can be appropriately anonymized so that the government doesn't know the site, and the site doesn't know the person's identity.

Why isn't this a thing yet? As far as I know, no one has proposed it.

  > A loophole that needs closing
  [Some argue] that this is a loophole in the legislation that needs closing and call for age verification to be required for VPNs as well.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/EPRS_AT...

Feels like its state vs man nowdays, worldwide. Don't let them mislead you.

Basically if you want to do any sort of remote work, I'm not saying you're necessarily using one right now, but the odds are good. Possibly the politician's own IT back-end might have ... opinions... on the ability of the executive to overly check the legislative too.

Now there is a time politicians control what websites we can access.

They need a referendum since it affects people's security and well being.

EU is a tyrrant.

I'm not as bearish on all this as most people here. I don't see much use for age restriction, except maybe keeping preteens off social media. That said, the proposed verification tech is very private, as far as I can tell. My review was cursory, though. Also, each EU member is free to use a different technical solution. Of course they're free to not make age verification obligatory at all. This programme is meant to be a strong default legislative and technical framework: it can't make EU members do something.

As VPNs usually cost some money, which is already a barrier for minors.

There is billions of research going into making children addicted through the window of their phone screen to watch apps, and now with AI this is getting even more dangerous.

It's not only children, also many elderly people are targeted. They are very lonely and then develop a Claude addiction.

VPN for the VPN with a back-up VPN for the VPN's VPN.

People pointed that out quite a while ago already. Age sniffing is a joint attack on the freedoms of people, which explains why these lobbyists also try to abolish VPNs. Their vision for the world wide web is one of authorization. Ultimately they will fail, but a few get rich here in the process.

It reminds me the Mullvad pub campaign: https://mullvad.net/en/and-then/uk

How come being that corrupt pays off so well when you're a politician.

Obviously, it's not about the children. It was never about the children. If I had my way every one of these people would be taken to a gulag, because they are evil, have evil intentions, and blatantly lie to further their evil goals. I am tired of the intolerant being tolerated, and by allowing this to fester we are headed for a much worse totalitarian dystopia.

Also, the EPRS did not argue that they are a loophole that needs closing.

From the actual paper:

> Some argue that this is a loophole in the legislation that needs closing and call for age verification to be required for VPNs as well. In response, some VPN providers argue that they do not share information with third parties and state that their services are not intended for use by children in the first place.

The "some argue" is a link; it turns out that 'some' here is the Children's Commissioner for England, a post with, AIUI, only an advisory role in the UK, and obviously not even that in the EU.

It's just a pity they are destroying the internet while doing that. They should be attacking the companies making money from porn instead.

And by the way porn can damage your mind even after 18 so age verification is not a real solution anyway.

The plan is to replace the 99% with machines. It doesn't matter to the 1% if you survive their glorious, great filter.

The great filter is billionaires. It's a billionaire control problem, not a superintelligence control problem. You're livestock. There's a better ox and cart that just pulled down the gravel road.

Then leave the rest of the world out of domestic failed parenting nonsense. However, policy would still likely fail given the cruelty youthful ignorance often brings, and persistent 1:100 child psychopath occurrence rates. =3

The EU was known to be a privacy rights nightmare for at least 10 years now.

The EU won't stop until it has access to all your data, all your messages, anything you read, save, send will be scrutinized by the the big great EU and it's little minions.

Hey, at least we get the freedom of movement right?

You guys should know better, yet keep falling for the distraction every time. That’s exactly how they win.

Add better parental controls to devices, if Facebook sends my children porn on a phone that's "underage" than they get a big fat fine.

But I guess then there's no sending my ID to the world, think of the poor advertisers.

Legislation must call real experts before making any *technical* decisions.